Anthropology 107b Exam #1 review
Chapter 1…
What Students Should Learn From This Chapter
1. Learn how anthropology helps us to better understand ourselves:
⋅ explore the impulse to find out who we are and where we came from
⋅ explain how and why the discipline emerged and developed
⋅ describe anthropology’s relationship to the other social sciences
2. Know the subfields of anthropology and understand their purpose and practice:
⋅ physical anthropology
⋅ archaeology
⋅ linguistics
⋅ ethnology
3. Appreciate how anthropologists conduct their research and the limits on such research:
⋅ ethnography
⋅ cross-cultural comparison
⋅ participant observation
4. Understand anthropology’s relationship to the “hard sciences” and to the humanities:
⋅ the hypothesis-testing framework
5. Recognize some of the ethical issues that confront anthropologists today.
6. Learn how anthropology contributes to the understanding and solution of contemporary
problems.
Chapter 2…
What Students Should Learn From This Chapter
1. Understand the role of anthropology in studying the past.
2. Know the difference between artifacts and fossils.
3. Understand how sites and localities are discovered.
4. Understand how sites and localities are investigated.
5. Know the factors affecting the preservation of artifacts and fossils.
6. Understand the process and importance of meticulous recording in archaeological excavation.
7. Describe the various techniques of archaeological dating
Chapter 3…
What Students Should Learn From This Chapter
1. Understand the mechanisms of heredity that enable evolution to occur.
· DNA
· genes
· chromosomes
2. Know how evolution works in a population.
· mutation
· genetic drift
· gene flow
· natural selection
· adaptation
3. Understand what a species is and how it evolves.
4. Know who Charles Darwin was and what his contribution to science was.
5. Understand how natural selection works.
Part 2…Essay questions…
Chapter 1…
Distinguish ethnology from ethnography and explain their relationship
Why are cross-cultural comparisons important in anthropology?
What kinds of ethical issues do anthropologists face? To whom do they have obligations?
What are the branches of cultural anthropology and what do they have in common?
Chapter 2…
What are archaeological sites and fossil localities and how are they studied?
What are fossils and how are they created?
Why is an accurate and detailed record of excavations so important to the value of archaeological
materials? What features do these records normally include?
Briefly discuss the process of archaeological excavation. Include the terms matrix, provenience,
context and association in your answer.
Chapter 3…
Why did Darwin’s idea arouse so much controversy?
Explain how natural selection works and use examples either from the natural environment or
from the video, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.”
How are natural selection and survival of the fittest related to each other?
What do random mutations have to do with evolution?